The Duchess of Kent has revealed a weakness for gangsta rap – citing Ice Cube as one of her favourites.
The Duchess, more informally known as Katharine Kent, also revealed her fondness for another rapper, Eminem, in an interview with the Sunday Telegraph, in which she also spoke about the 13-year-long career as a music teacher that she enjoyed in Hull after stepping back from public life.
The Duchess, 89, who prefers to be referred to simply as Katharine, dispensed with her HRH title when she stepped back from public life 20 years ago.
She told the Sunday Telegraph: “I just love music. Something that catches my ear on the radio – I don’t really listen to records. If it makes my feet tap, then I’m happy.”
She added: “I’ll listen to anything. I even like beatboxing.”
Katharine first hinted at her eclectic music tastes in a 2005 BBC Radio 3 interview, during which she cited rap music and the singer/songwriter Dido as favourites. In 2014, she described rap as “wonderful”, “terrifically difficult” and “beautiful” and admitted being a big fan of the British artist Tinie Tempah.
Katharine’s passion for music has been a theme throughout her life. When she relinquished her royal duties in 2002, there was speculation that she had done so because she was a recluse, suffering from agoraphobia.
In the interview published this weekend, however, the Duchess shared memories of the 13 years she spent teaching music at Wansbeck primary school in Hull, Yorkshire. “I was just known as Mrs Kent,” she says.
“Only the head knew who I was. The parents didn’t know and the pupils didn’t know. No one ever noticed. There was no publicity about it at all – it just seemed to work.
She also gave piano lessons in a rented studio flat near her official residence at Kensington Palace, served as the president of the Royal Northern College of Music, and was the director of National Foundation for Youth Music from 1999 to 2007.
Despite her decision to stay away from public life, Katharine continued to appear at major events, including the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge in 2011.
The decision came soon after she had gained attention for her conversion to Roman Catholicism in 1994 – she was the first member of the royal family to convert publicly since the passing of the Act of Settlement in 1701.
She has spoken about her struggle with depression after an abortion in 1975 because of rubella and her experience of giving birth to a stillborn son, Patrick, in 1977.
The Duchess, a descendant of Oliver Cromwell, married Prince Edward, the first cousin of Queen Elizabeth II, in 1961. He is the son of Prince George, Duke of Kent and Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark. The pair are still married and have three children.
She is also a long-serving supporter of Unicef, having helped to serve free meals to the homeless, and for five years volunteered for the Samaritans after becoming a patron of the charity in 1977.
